I just did this like 3 minutes ago: when you shear a sheep when it's eating grass, the wool regrows immediately. Please someone, add this to Trivia or wherever it belongs.

Confusion: On this page, it says pink sheep have a 0.164% chance of spawning. However, on the dye page, it says 0.174%. Which one is correct? Edit: I meant on the Wool page NOT the dye page. 72.209.199.2 21:18, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure where to put this so I'm writing here because it's one of the relevant pages...

From what I understand, a Wiki should keep all their information up-to-date. Here we've jumble up stuff from Alpha and Survival Test. We must understand that they are all the same game, just in a different version. So putting their old drops and other old information in the main article just isn't right. But removing it won't do either, as they might serve as a memory of important milestones in the development of Minecraft.

So I propose to move all that data to a new "History" subsection in the article. I tried doing that but it was soon reverted because it was said that "History is not needed". If not, at least put it as a Trivia, and not in the Main article? --Scykei 14:11, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I thought I read somewhere that mobs stepping on tilled soil can also revert them to dirt, and destroy farming? If so, that would give another reason to kill sheep or pig. Please ignore if this is untrue. Meioziz 01:48, 10 November 2010 (CST)

Yes, you are correct, mobs stepping on tilled soil (farmland) will revert it to dirt, that would be a reason to kill them, but you could just place fences around. If you just HATE sheep, or you're finished with them, you could kill them. Anyways, pigs give you pork (I'm vegetarian D: so I have trouble surviving in Minecraft) so that already is a reason to kill them. Stinkbug22 22:18, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I know that feeling, sister/brother. Having a hard time surviving as a vegetarian, that is.

With the recent update we've received a glut of new images of sheep in all colors, and I'm not entirely certain we need quite so many of them! Am I alone in this viewpoint or should we start pruning a few of them? - SoNick (Talk | Contribs) 00:51, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I just pruned two of them, since they are indeed beginning to become repetitive. I think that we should monitor this closely, and begin to remove similar pictures from the block, since one for each sheep seems alright enough by me, but more than one for each... well is getting to be a bit too much. -St. Fenix(User•Talk) 15:39, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Has anyone done research about how long it takes for sheep's wool to regrow. And will a sheep that has been dyed and sheared continue to regrow wool of the dyed color? (thus saving dye and making a colored sheep farm theoretically practical for colored wool harvesting) - Londonbrig0 17:24, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Sheep do not currently regrow wool. It was an aspect that Notch tested and then removed. Zephyriphoenix 15:51, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone know if the regrowth is true now that 1.8 is around? The animals seem to be persistent, as I have trapped 3 cows and 2 sheep, and have had them happily sitting in pens in my home for over a day's worth of play now.NinjaKitty

If they do regrow wool it must be after dozens of minecraft days. Proximity could be an issue but even lurking at the pen for many days makes no difference. Surely they can't remain naked forever! 121.44.225.69 04:26, 29 December 2011 (UTC).

They DO regrow wooll, practicaly instantaneously. They regrow wool if they eat the grass that is on dirt blocks. May 2012

It would be interesting to know how many blocks of grass you need for 1 sheep. Because if there's not enough grass after a few Minecraft days there's no grass left! about 9. ):

Yes, the sheep will regrow the wool the color that you have dyed the sheep. Saving you dye. Also the sheep will regrow their wool whenever they decide to eat grass. Therefore it could take a matter of seconds to a couple of minutes to a couple of hours for the sheep to regrow their wool. Sources: Past experience August 16, 2012

With the advent of different colored naturally occuring sheep, it seems to be apparent to me that some of them are rarer than others. I myself have a hard time finding Black sheep and using it to build with is fairly difficult, unless I sheer tons of White sheep that never stop spawning in my game, and dye that. So It's making me wonder, is there a way to tell if the sheep spawning is slanted towards more white than grey/black? And if we can prove it, it should be mentioned in the article. -St. Fenix(User•Talk) 15:41, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

The darker natural colours definitely appear with only a fraction of the frequency with which white ones do, but I've only got personal experience to go by and that's not good enough for the article. SteveZombie 10:21, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd concur that colours other than white are much rarer, and see it as only common sense to put this in the article until somebody can come up with some hard statistics. After all, isn't the wiki built around user knowledge, the majority of which comes from playing the game itself? Feel free to remove this if it breaches some regulation of the wiki. (I should probably look over those.) Troagador 14:42, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I'll look at the code for spawning sheep when I get the chance. And I'm almost certain there are dark grey sheep, seeing as I have dark grey wool (if I remember properly) in my chest. I'll check that tonight for sure. --Thevdude 00:41, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Got this info from the server software, don't know if this is the same as in singleplayer:

I have this sheep here that will not move. It will turn around to look around and make BAAA noises, but it will not leave. Could someone explain why it is immobile? Is it because it is on the lower half of the stair?

Its stuck between the stair and the door, mobs do that somethimes, if you put a block with a sign on top of it and remove the block, chickens can get stuck under it at the same way as that sheep.

I have found about 2 dozen brown sheep, but yet to find 1 pink sheep. ...3% to 0.164% is about 1 pink sheep for every 18 brown sheep. I've found about 24 so far, so why am I not getting any? :/ Cool12309(T|C) 02:00, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

*shrug* I've found like 4 or 5 at this point. They are really, really rare. I'm sure I've found way more brown sheep than that though. --Warlock 02:06, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm finding them everywhere in my new 1.0 world.

i play singe player a for a year's time or so and i've only seen like 10-15 total. point is, pink sheep are #*#*ing rare, and that spawn rate is is 0.164 or something. look at how much percent that is.. look at 5%; 5% is a 1/20 chance of happening, then break that into half and then break that into half... 108.31.5.107 03:16, 13 August 2014 (UTC) seth

I'm removing the "rapidly spawning sheep glitch" from the trivia section because the only citation is some 12-year old's youtube vid, could have very easily been done with SPC and there's no other mention elsewhere of this supposed bug. Caffeine 15:01, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I have recently tried suffocating sheep beneath sand, and it doesn't seem that they die. Another couple of interesting things happen e.g. they turn darkish (as if they were in nighttime). They are also hittable through the sand and die the same way as in under normal circumstances. They still jump and move as if they were trying to escape. I haven't tried out what happened to them if you shear them.

Can someone confirm this for the sake of research? --Kadinsky 19:39, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Anything that us inside a solid block looks dark because the block is blocking (excuse the unintentional pun) the light. I have noticed all of these same observations in SMP, but the block pushed the sheep out before it could even begin to suffocate. Maybe that happened to you too? Verhalthur (talk)(contribs) 19:51, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't seem to be doing that. The sheep is very much visible but he remains trapped. I will post a screencap some time tomorrow. Thanks for the reply! --Kadinsky 22:25, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

I noticed this when pigs kept going through 1 block high holes all the time, but sheep weren't. Also I consider this somewhat important information for trap-planning. Can someone look into this and confirm the heights (all the dimensions) or correct it?

(Posted it on the Talk:Pig page too. Sorry if I shouldn't have.) Blaz 07:37, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Maybe if you have some texture pack then those are the dimensions . But i don't think that those are in the original one . --dariomTc. 16:41, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Hey guys, I've been playing this one map for a while now, and I've been seeing some sheep that were already sheared. I know it wasn't me because (until notch re-adds sheep wool regrowing) sheep become useless afterwards I slay them (cept the ones in my farm). I've seen at least 4-5 sheep without wool. Anyone else seen the streaker sheep? Geonightman 16:38, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Confirmed, I have had shawn sheep spawn. --Agouti 13:07, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like you had an encounter with herobrine.

I came on here looking for that same exact thing. I'm like... O.O omg... what is going on. I know that I slay sheep after sheering them because they don't regrow wool. I was looking for some sheep to breed and I just keep coming across sheered sheep. I killed them because I didn't know their color and moved on. Well it's been a few real days and about 8 hours worth of gameplay. It's becoming a problem for me. ~Destiny~ email: [email protected]

I've been playing in a SMP server for a while, and I'm positive of the following:

Sheep do not seem to respawn, but they do regrow their wool in a respawn like fashion. If they DO respawn, it is only near other sheep. I'm not sure if it's connected to long grass at all, however I haven't managed to get a sheep to regrow under observation. --Agouti 13:11, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

This is absolutely utterly and completely false on all levels --24.136.225.226 16:11, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

And about the spawning behaviour, I recently noticed that there is one black sheep for each three white sheeps, is it intended to be like that? --Ayudon1 13:12, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Is that a thing yet, or is it still "coming soon"? billybobfred 20:16, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

It is a thing. It's so cool when it re grows, because you've just sheared a sheep, and when it decides to eat-poof! It has wool. And you can shear it again. And see it re grow again. And repeat. And repeat. But the wool only re grows when the sheep eats, so... it could take a second, or a loooong time. It depends. Happy shearing! 70.181.68.226 04:19, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I can never find sheep in my current worlds. Weird, you know, how whenever you really need one mob, it never appears? Anyway, does anyone know where sheep are most likely to spawn; for example, the biome, how to maximize spawns, and perhaps even a seed with lots of sheep. If anyone would reply to to this, that would be helpful. Thank you for reading this.

CURSE YOU SHEEP!!!!

I don't believe that biome nor seed reliably effects sheep spawning (other than the more well lit grass, and the less wolves, the more sheep.) Try killing other passives when you see them, and maintaining as much well lit grass as possible, openness should help as well. Cultist O 06:44, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Because I've just seen one growing up even before his parents recovered from the love mode. It was constantly consuming grass, much faster than mature sheep. Could anyone confirm this? 95.221.31.35 12:58, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Also, it turned into a mature sheep instantly after it chewed another block. 95.221.31.35 13:03, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, lambs grow much faster when they eat grass (from the 1.1-code) - they skip 1 minute of growing when they eat grass, they need 20 minutes to grow if they don't eat grass (the same time as all other animals), so lambs are able to grow much faster. They eat approximately every 2,5 seconds - older sheeps eat approximately every 50 seconds 84.119.75.218 01:57, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

You should spawn 5000 sheep far away from your house. They will come.... 0.o

help, how can i stop them? for the past five hours ive been massacring sheep, i even got a ton of tnt in a hole and blew up the lot of them, but this island im on has at least one thousand sheep to start, i have a double chest almost full of whool from killing sheep, why wont they stop? its insane, there in my tower, eating my zen garden in the skys lawn, running around my mine, and floating around the island!!!! help

Me too: I'm also overwhelmed with sheep. I decided this morning to go visit my village and on the way found a field with possibly 1000 of them bleating away. There was also a shallow ravine filled with a hundred or so sheep. I've never seen so many in one place before and wonder if it is a bug. Anyway, I've broken one sword killing sheep already and I am on my way back to massacre more sheep! 101.171.85.60 19:23, 8 February 2014 (UTC) - After a what seems like hours of killing well over a thousand sheep I found the problem. I have found a huge black area where blocks haven't loaded and I can sometimes see a black flying sheep inside. I can't walk into the area at all, it is just a black zone of nothingness that spawns sheep. If anyone knows what to do with these black holes advice would be appreciated. 101.171.85.60 22:28, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

- Fixed with MCedit. The black hole is gone and no more sheep problems. 101.171.85.60 00:42, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

I've run across a possible bug with two pairs of sheep when having lambs.

If there are two pairs of sheep who are in love mode at relatively the same time (before one pair has a baby), then spawn two lambs, all parents will follow the first-born lamb. The other one will be completely ignored. This happens whether or not the lamb belongs to the parents.

So i saw some guy say something about breeding sheep a certain order to get the rainbow sheep,is it true? If so,how do i breed it?--Pedrorandumthe3rd 21:57, 22 March 2012 (UTC)P R the 3rdPedrorandumthe3rd 21:57, 22 March 2012 (UTC)--

Rainbow Sheep are all too real and I hate them. Sure they look cool, but you only get white or black wool when shearing them. And if you spawn too many, like my son did, it will crash the computer. Now I have to figure out how to kill them all with the horrible lag they caused. Very slow going. BTW, to get rainbow sheep you have to use an anvil and name tag. Place the name JEB on the name tag with the anvil and then place the name tag on the sheep and taadaa you have a rainbow sheep. My son also did this with a sheep egg and spawned and enormous amount of these horrible little creatures, so I am off to the killing fields...

After creating a new world using the seed Airsoft I have found 4 pink sheep in a close distance and now im really confused. Is this some sort of glitch or am i lucky and should play the lottery –Preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.41.111.251(Talk|Contribs) 04:32, 26 March 2012‎. Please sign your posts with ~~~~

This is natural, but rare; about a 1 in 610 chance. That's still thousands of times more likely than winning the lottery. -- Orthotope 05:20, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually this is thousands of times rarer than winning the lottery. 1 in 610 is for 1 pink sheep, to find four is 1 in 138458410000 (1 in 610^4). This number is calculated without factoring in the likelihood of sheep spawning jnstead of other mobs, and the likelihood of four mobs spawning near the player, therefore it should be about 2 or 3 times rarer.

The likelihood of winning the lottery is only 1 in 13983816. --Anoymous712 04:45, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I have 2 questions - was wondering if anyone knew if sheep will eat grass even if they haven't been sheared, and can sheep eat grass that is under a fence? --23.24.55.162 20:55, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

They will definitely eat grass even when unsheared, I've seen it often enough. A quick look at my sheep farm suggests they cannot eat grass from under a fence. (And confirms the first point. ;-) ) --Mental Mouse 22:04, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I've tested this as well. A few fenced in pens, 1 control (sheared sheep on grass), 1 with unsheared sheep on grass, and 1 with sheared sheep on stone with the fences on grass. The unsheared sheep soon ate some grass. The sheared sheep on stone never regained its wool, and the grass under the fences remained untouched. As an additional test, I also tried sheared sheep *on* fences over grass - same results as the sheep on stone. Test duration lasted about 10 minutes - long enough for the control sheep to regrow all their wool a couple times. --173.62.201.234 05:45, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

i just killed a sheep with an enchanted ironsword with smite 4 ,fire aspect 2, looting 2, and knock back 2 and it dropped an egg has this ever happened to anyone else because it freaked me out!!!??? 67.40.247.59 03:16, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

I have a very very very odd glitch in minecraft, I had a sheep farm with a small wheat farm, I destroy the wheat farm, and kill all the sheep, I go away and come back and it all respawns! The wheat farm and all! 64.126.89.244

Chances are the chunks aren't being saved, then when you leave that area and come back, the chunk loads from what has saved. Maybe you should press the escape button when you destroy the farm. That should force it to save. -- (T)Numbermaniac(C) 06:41, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I've had numerous sheep farms over my time playing minecraft, simply because I like having carpets, and I've noticed among spending my time with the sheep that they might have different personalities depending on the color they are? Like, I've noticed that I ALWAYS have more wool of some colors than others because when im going around sheering my sheep, those colors seem to eat grass more often. Also that some sheep colors drop more wool than others when sheered and it seems to happen consistently. Is this true? Perhaps with the way they're coded or something it messed with their eating habits and such? Could someone test this? My friends think im a weirdo o.O;

I decided to do a test to see if the sheep can spawn in 2 block high rooms unlike what this wiki says, that they need two blocks space above them to spawn. I can breed sheep just fine. I play on a server where I own an underground farm. Logged on a bit ago to find some of the sheep were gone. The server has land protection so I own this land therefor nobody can edit it, or kill animals but me. What would cause them to disappear? A friend of mine said they have to have two blocks above them to live, but clearly that's not the case since I've had this farm for almost a week now and nothing like this has happened. What would cause them to disappear like this? 74.34.64.43 12:47, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Sereiously you don't have to beleive me I caught 17 pink sheep recorded 8 others (27) and saw more IN THE SAME PLACE!!!! What are the odds can somebody please work it out?!!! Is it a know glitch???? A little help with screenshots 2 i got pictures (no i didnt dye them)!!!!!!!!Coffe789 13:14, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

The chance of having 27 pink sheep spawn is about 0.000000000000000000000632%, so I can understand why you're pretty surprised. It's not a glitch, it's just luck of the draw, seriously. To get that to happen, it must have been a very rare occurrence. -- Numbermaniac- T- C 06:39, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I've just come across nine pink sheep in close proximity to each other. If we rely on the probability listed here, that is a very unlikely event. As a budding statistician myself I am beginning to wonder about the source of this probability — is it taken directly from game code or was it determined experimentally? And is the information up-to-date as of v1.5 (or later snapshots)? If from code, could there be some other influence — for instance, could the white and light grey sheep that were also nearby have bred off-screen and produced pink offspring, or otherwise somehow been taken into account by the spawning process? If the data was taken experimentally, perhaps it's time to use a larger sample, as intuitively it seems that the probability our experimenter was limited by time/patience and has provided data with a large error, would be greater than the supposed probability of finding so many pink sheep as I have (and that's not to mention the fellow above).--121.45.66.109 08:08, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

That is a really interesting thought, and I'm into numbers myself (hence my username :D). Someone else also said they found 27 pink sheep, which was interesting to hear. I'm not sure about how new or old the info is, but I might look into that when I have the time. They can't breed themselves, only the player can breed sheep. Also, when you breed sheep, you can't get a different colour sheep. The baby sheep will always be the color of one of the parents, it may be either, although I believe it is more likely to be the first one. I really like your thought, and it would be nice to check the integrity of that info. -- Numbermaniac- T- C 08:36, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and next time when you add a section, you can easily press "Add topic" at the top. -- Numbermaniac- T- C 08:37, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Update, I've found something like ten more and I'd guess that about 1/3 of total sheep I've found have been pink. Don't suppose there's an automated way to check a selection of chunks over a selection of seeds, or anything similar. Best thing would be to have a look directly at how they're spawned but that might be more difficult (if faster) than experimentation. Re: breeding, that's basically what I thought but a friend of mine was convinced otherwise and seemed to think that some sort of "pseudo-breeding" could be producing the pink sheep. In any case I'll be trying to figure this out. And cheers for the pointer re: adding a section.--121.45.66.109 11:24, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

This is really getting quite interesting. I wish I knew what part of Minecraft's code determined the sheep spawning chance. I could maybe have then seen the chance of them spawning. From what I know, they cannot breed by themselves, and babies will always be the same colour of at least one of the parents. And when replying, you can click the "edit" link on the right side of the header. Means you don't have to scroll for ages to get to the bottom. -- Numbermaniac- T- C 07:47, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

The numbers are based on the color-randomizing function in the Sheep entity code. (I could post it here if you want, but MCP makes it a horrible multiply-nested ternary statement.) I simulated calling that function a few million times, and got statistically identical results. I'm not sure how to explain clusters of pink sheep, other than a quirk of the random number generator not being truly random. -- Orthotope 09:24, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Interesting. So if the stats on Sheep are correct, then all there Pink Sheep phenomenons are truly interesting. Do you know where I can find the code at least? -- (T)Numbermaniac(C) 09:26, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I guess it could be figured out with some more investigation but frankly I'm satisfied with this explanation. Cheers. Sometimes forget that we're not dealing with a truly random process - in any event Newtonian determinism should keep valid the comparison to winning the lottery (many times, as the case may be).--121.45.61.62 05:21, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Or, the pink sheep aren't unusual after all. I've seen three at a time, and then some scattered about my lovely little world. --70.181.68.226 11:53, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

9 pink sheep in one herd. I've seen multiple pink sheep in a general area but those were made up of several herds spawned near each other. What are the odds that one herd of 9 sheep would spawn all pink?

Can we please get a chart that shows the different combinations of sheep that can be breed and dyed to make different colors? I find it very confusing to try to find out what colors I need to make a specific color, and as a wiki, shouldn't we try to provide the most accurate and easy to understand information that we can? I think a chart would really help. Thank you. Brickticks (talk) 15:28, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Can we Pretty Please get a animation of the rainbow sheep uploaded? Meaning, a short video/animation of the sheep in game. Like the animation used on the lightning page used to show the lightning strike. That kind of animation. I really want to be able to let others see the new rainbow sheep's animation. Thank you. Brickticks (talk) 18:23, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Do we really need an image of every color of baby sheep? There are already higher quality versions of colored sheep and a white baby sheep, so it seems redundant. –KnightMiner(t·c) 22:11, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, it only really seems necessary. All of my ideas are terrible, I know. I was even considering added dyed sheared sheep... I might add some better looking lamb screenshots later. -MinecraftPhotos4U (talk) 22:20, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Its not extremely terrible of an idea, my main problem with it was we were adding a mob rendering job when most of the know mob renderers are inactive. I could cheat renders of the colors by modifying the sheep render color, though they would not have anti-aliasing. –KnightMiner(t·c) 04:01, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Seems like an idea. What about the dyed and sheared? - MinecraftPhotos4U (talk) 16:06, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Main problem with them is we already use the PC model for the main sheep, so it would be inconsistent to use the PE edition later. Other than that, since the renders are made with a mod, and PE lacks mods, that would add another challenge. –KnightMiner(t·c) 19:33, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Gamepedia

Tools

Content is available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 unless otherwise noted.Minecraft content and materials are trademarks and copyrights of Mojang and its licensors. All rights reserved.
This site is a part of Curse, Inc. and is not affiliated with Mojang.